Rainbow
by Mademise
Summary: Crackfic and queerness and general joie de vivre for the year of 2013. Warnings for death, violence, suicidal ideations, EDs, et cetera. T for Language, Insinuation and erotism. More-or-less unrelated snippets to be posted daily, in varying moods, quality and punctuality.
1. Chapter 1

Crystal knows that there is a skeleton within her body, knows it more keenly than most, and she knows the way her flesh molds and moves above it, knows muscle and fat and organ after organ. She knows skin and hunger and hurting.

It's a funny thing, because Crystal cares no more for the bones within her than any other thing, though they weigh her down, anchor her to the world. She would whittle them away if she could, cut herself loose from them and set adrift, but she'd do as much for every kite-string vein and vessel.

She'd give up anything the world could offer her, give up every joy and every atom and every memory that formed her into coherence, if only she could know peace, because her world is chaos and a din and it never stops, not if she covers her eyes and her ears and tries not to feel the meat inside her working.

But the world is chaos and there is no such thing as a promise, so Crystal remains skeleton draped with skin and clings onto what she can and is so desperately alone she sometimes thinks she can forget everything she knows.

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**A/N: A fairly somber start, but hopefully I'll get cheerful soon. Happy new year to all.**

**~Mademise Morte, January 1, 2013.**


	2. Chapter 2

Lenka's mind stretches out into the wide infinity of the world, and the worlds that weave in with it, twining and twisting and crazing and confusing.

Somewhere in the hubbub hides Sharon Wrong, glowing like a beacon.

She's not really a human, as such, neither face without name nor name without face. She is a shadow that hides in the dark behind the eyes of the vacant minded, the brightness at the angelic end of the tunnel. She fills in the gaps.

Lenka Bazaar listens for her, as much as she keeps her conscious mind to her when she's cracked herself open to draw in the contents of the universe. As much as there is anything that holds her together, she seeks Sharon out.

For her part, Sharon makes herself as easy to find as she can. When she flits from sentience to sentience, she tries to find Lenka's, gets closer and closer until she hits a snag and then it is struggling her way back again.

They haven't quite met yet, not personally, not in as much flesh as is available to them both. But as much as there is any likeness in existence, Lenka and Sharon are alike.

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**A/N: I do quite enjoy Lenka.**

**~Mademise Morte, January 2, 2013.**


	3. Chapter 3

Close your eyes and feel the world around you going still except that it isn't because you are the one going still and you can't close your eyes because you are freezing into stone and your brain is stilled, electricity crackling out via your spine except it's not because you have gone still and Ghastly really needs to scream right now, scream like he's never wanted to in his life, except he cannot because he is going still.

Time trickles to a stop and it's like sand sliding over his skin and it's a thousand fire ants exploding from his guts and it is bones going brittle and breaking like porcelain and it is blood turning to acid and burning through his body and it is nails slamming into the meat that is his brain and an infinity of needles vivisecting him into a myriad feebly twitching ribbons and it is not, because Ghastly Bespoke is going still and the screams reverberate on the inside of his skull, cracking like so many eggshells, into powder, into dust, into crumbling dry fragments abandoned to the centuries and Ghastly is falling into parts except he is not because he has gone still.

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**A/N: Wow, that's a long sentence.**

**~Mademise Morte, January 3, 2013.**


	4. Chapter 4

Tanith spreads herself out on the floor, letting herself press against it. She closes her eyes and straightens her spine and says, firmly, "I am not getting up for anything."

"Anything at all?" she is asked in a teasing tone by the dark-haired woman who is moving to kneel by her side.

"Anything at all," Tanith says, insistent. "I have spent so much of my life running."

"Running isn't the only kind of movement there is."

"Note," Tanith says, eloquent in her exhaustion, "that I did not say I would not move, but that I would not get up. There is a difference."

"Oh?" is posed the question, dangerously sweet.

"Mm," Tanith answers.

"So you won't mind if I do this, then?" Fingers dance softly over skin.

"Not at all," Tanith says lightly.

"Or this?"

"No objection whatever."

"Hm… This?"

"Oh, that's good…" Tanith sighs in bliss. "Wait, don't stop!"

"You want more, you get up and follow me." An innocent smile is cast in Tanith's direction. "Prove that there's more to life than running."

"You're some kind of evil, you know that?"

"Admit it, you love it."

"That I do, Valkyrie dearest," Tanith says, struggling up. "That I do."

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**A/N: I think that valith will forever and always be one of my favorite ships.**

**~Mademise Morte, January 4, 2012.**


	5. Chapter 5

"They'd call me a stargazer if I waited twelve hours," Clarabelle says darkly. "Why does a disregard for time make me crazy instead?"

"Because the sun is pain," China answers demurely from where she is bent over Clarabelle's arms, tracing sigils and runes gently on in oil. "Because they don't understand that there are some things that are worth all the hurt in the world. Because they will never be willing to stare the sky down themselves."

"How can they _not_, though?" Clarabelle asks, petulant. "It's so… _There_. Just. _Taunting you. _I don't think I could ever live with being out under the universe and never looking up. You know?"

"I do," China answers, honest, because that's a worthwhile pain as well.

"I just don't know how I could survive without seeing," Clarabelle says, pensive.

"Don't, then," China suggests, voice a mockery of casual. "See all you want."

"People get in the way, though."

"People always will. You can learn to look through them."

"Is that what you do, China? Do you catch them like bugs and hold them still so you can look through them?" Clarabelle asks wonderingly.

"Yes," China admits to the girl she never could quite catch.

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**A/N: I must have written this pairing before, but I don't really remember. I had fun with this.**

**~Mademise Morte, January 5, 2013.**


	6. Chapter 6

Clarabelle has escaped into the cemetery and she thinks she might have forgotten how to read somewhere down the long, weary road she has trod to reach this point in her existence, because the tombstones are scratched with gibberish.

It seems odd, to look at them so and to know so much nothing about them. They're not like people, who she can figure out in an instant, but like puzzles. They are blank pages and her mind fills them in.

Clarabelle's skin crawls as she stands there caught in the long rows and columns that organize the graves, the corpses, the _cadavers_, and she can't have forgotten to read after all, because suddenly she's surrounded by the family she's lost, the friends she's thrown away (_limp, boneless, broken dolls_), the strangers she never let see another sun. She is frozen into place because something in her head has clicked and she can sort through so much more than just humans right now.

It could have been a transcendent moment, the start of a religion, a crisis, a cleansing of the world. It could have been, if only Clarabelle had not found herself shackled to the ground by nothing at all.

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**A/N: I think I possibly will forever have a certain fondness for Clarabelle.**

**~Mademise Morte, December 25, 2012.**


	7. Chapter 7

Tanith Low has had it up to _here_ with stupidity. It's nothing to do with intellectual snobbery, she tells herself as she stands outside her parents' study and glares in at the academic sorcerers at work. She hasn't inherited _that_ from them, unlike their hair and their eyes and their strong wrists.

It's just that there's so much wrong with every part of the world and no one seems to see it and it's not that they're blind, because the blind would know fault more acutely than most, but it's that they don't realize that they should care, can't tell that it's _important_, and it is so, so important. Tanith may be white and her family may be rich and her body may be able but she's also a woman, or something like it, and she's been through so much, seen so many changes, learnt just enough to know that there is no such thing as change. Not really.

Because she sees the looks, hears the comments, feels the judgment hanging heavy from her neck like so much tightening noose, and Tanith Low has had it up to _here _with bigots and their refusal to see any sense at all.

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**A/N: Apologies for all these delays. I hope to be caught up by the end of the month.**

**~Mademise Morte**


	8. Chapter 8

Becoming a Cleaver sounds a lot like dying. It's sacrifice, that's for sure: you give up your magic to strengthen your body and you give up your body to strengthen the Cause, and you give up your autonomy to anyone who asks for it. You leave the reins to your loyalty to someone you trust, for at least as long as you can quiet your conscience.

Becoming a Cleaver doesn't feel like dying. It feels like being so fiercely alive that everything has stopped. It's your mind fragmenting into a thousand directions and leaving your body with just enough of a spark to still your reflexes, to take orders instead from another. It's vacating your being and letting someone else think for you, take over your flesh.

In return, there's no more pain, no more heartbreak, no more feeling.

Becoming the White Cleaver is a revelation. It isn't so much _a lot like dying _as actually, well, dying, and that's the first hurt he's felt in a while, but more than that, it is regaining control. He wakes up and senses magic running in his veins and for the first time in years he has the will to control it.

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**A/N: Cleaver-pronouns have mystified me for a while but the White Cleaver is referred to as a 'he' so that's what I've stuck with here.**

**~Mademise Morte**


	9. Chapter 9

Tanith likes blades and cutting and she loves feeling life drain away from another living being, but she knows that she's not supposed to admit to that so instead she says she likes justice and she laps up tales of the war, the wars, of every conflict preserved in history, and she closes her eyes and imagines that she is in them, imagines that she is the one distributing injury and something thrills inside her veins.

So she grows older and she doesn't admit the things that make her blood feel warm and she goes out with bad boys because they let her get away with anything since they can feel it too, can feel the hormones buzzing them up, and she metes out what retribution she can when she can find it and she tries so hard to keep the joy out of her eyes in the days after each death.

Most of the time, she succeeds, but sometimes she just can't, but she's pretty and young and blonde so people assume it's youthful high spirits. Sometimes she wishes they would see further, but usually, she's just glad to get away with so much chasing the life she loves.

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**A/N: She would make an interesting serial killer to write.**

**~Mademise Morte**


	10. Chapter 10

Desmond, Fergus and Gordon sneak out from under their father's thumb to listen to their grandfather's tales. This is where Gordon learns how to spin a story and Fergus learns to smoothly accomplish even the most debauched acts and Desmond learns to dream. The old man watches them, fixes them with a gaze as piercing as a pin to butterfly flesh, even as he recounts all those things he remembers.

He wants to show them, but something that magic likes is a good narrative, and who is he to argue with that? and so he shows them nothing up to the point when he fakes his death, only tells them everything he can and watches and waits and hopes.

Real life isn't a story, though, and so it falls apart. Desmond stops believing though he continues to dream, buries himself in the mortal world and ignores the call of his blood. Gordon lives on in the magic. And Fergus?

Fergus doesn't _believe, _not as such and not any more, because belief implies trust. But he knows in his bones that there is such a thing as truth and one day when he is old he will tell the stories too.

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**A/N: I wonder if he really did fake his death. He might be an interesting addition to future books if so.**

**~Mademise Morte**


	11. Chapter 11

There is too much sound. You can hear your own breath catching against the tissue of your throat, rattling around your lungs to leave every contaminant the air has caught and brought to you. You can hear your blood rushing through your veins, spilling through your flesh, beating through your heart. You can hear the thrums, squeaks and muted hums of your every other system working to keep you alive.

You don't want to be alive. Not like this. Not when there's so much noise and so much mess and so much horror to be had in the truth of your own body. You need quiet, crave it. Silence would be your friend were you able ever to find it.

You sew up your mouth and still you have your sight and that is noise too, buzzing at the edge of your senses, so you sew up your eyes, and then you can still feel your interior so you burn yourself. The fire is sound, the pain is sound, but at least you control this. At least, for this one moment, you have mastery of your self.

Silence settles over the emptiness you have carved and it is your friend.

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**A/N: I understand that the guidelines don't allow for second person, but that is for an interactive story and I'm pretty sure this constitutes non-interactive second person.**

**I really love writing the Nye.**

**~Mademise Morte, January 11, 2013.**


	12. Chapter 12

Skulduggery enjoys mysteries in that he likes to unravel them, likes to see the world unfurling to show the seed of sense that starts it all. It's why he became a detective, after all.

Ghastly Bespoke is a mystery to him, and he really shouldn't be. They are Dead Men, after all, shared everything of their lives and hopes and needs in the days of the war, but still Skulduggery can look upon Ghastly and see confusion in the juxtaposition of the man who killed easily once and the being who so desperately craves peace. Beauty and horror curl into one in his soul and not in any way related to his appearance.

And there is more. There's the history and the slightly-less distant past and there is the craving, always the craving, and sometimes Skulduggery just wants the war to be back because mysteries were straightforward then and he thinks that no matter how hard he tries, there may never be any genius of logic to the trials and torments of his friend. His dearest, oldest friend, for whom he wishes the world.

Skulduggery enjoys mysteries even if he cannot solve them, and so with his friend he stays.

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**A/N: I guess this is kind of a nonsexual relationship? The word that springs to mind is queerplatonic, I think.**

**This was written for a ghastduggery kinkmeme prompt by creepygirl13/Kaza999.**

**~Mademise Morte, January 12, 2013.**


	13. Chapter 13

Speed = Distance/Time

Speed equals distance over time, which means that the speed at which Skulduggery returned from the dimension of the Faceless Ones was one dimension over eleven months. On the one hand, that's really impressive considering it's, you know, a whole dimension and everything. One the other hand, though, eleven whole months? Not so favorable.

Weight = Gravitational Constant * Mass

So it turns out that when we talk about weight, we're actually talking about mass. So while Crystal would say she weighs forty kg, that's actually not her weight but her mass. Since she's on earth (more or less), her actual weight is forty kg times nine point eight one meters per second squared, which is the earth's approximate gravitational constant. So she actually weighs three-hundred and ninety-two point four Newtons. Forty kg sounds better, though.

Force = Mass * Acceleration

So basically if I push Fletcher over, the amount of force I'm using is the same as his mass times his acceleration away from me. Or it would be, if it weren't for the fact that he would simultaneously be trying to get away of his own volition. Which is, you know, probably a good idea.

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**A/N: Hi, I'm really sorry about the delay! I've been going through content for my IGCSEs, which has really eaten up my writing time. Since I've finished that, though, and am now working on the whole memorizing thing, I've decided to combine the two. So here you go: the Reflection explaining basic scientific concepts to Valkyrie. This'll probably continue for a while. I've got quite a lot to memorize.**

**~Mademise Morte, March 4, 2013.**


	14. Chapter 14

Force = Constant * Extension

This is something called Hooke's Law. It's for springs and elastic stuff. So if you have a vat and hang it on a spring and fill it with the blood of innocents, the amount the spring extends is proportionate to the amount of blood. Up until the limit of proportionality, which is when the spring denatures and is forever ruined.

I am told that if you want to test this, China Sorrows would be happy to provide the vat and the blood, though you'll have to find your own giant spring. I wonder how elastic human guts would be…

Pressure = Force/Area

So, back to Miss Sorrows, and this time we're talking about instruments of torture: high heels. If she were trying to break something, like, for example, the bones of someone's hand, she'd probably want to increase the pressure as much as possible. While she could do things like kicking down from greater height or a jump or something like that to increase force, what she could also do is shrink the area of the heel of her shoe. After all, a stiletto is a kind of knife.

A wonderful, evil kind of knife.

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**A/N: Interestingly, a google search will easily inform you how much pressure is needed to tear off a human penis.**

**~Mademise Morte, March 4, 2013.**


	15. Chapter 15

Kinetic Energy = 1/2 * Mass * Velocity^2

If you throw a corpse off a cliff, then the kinetic energy of that corpse is half of its mass times the square of its velocity. However, this is not advisable, as there might be people watching the cliff to make sure no one jumps off it.

Potential Energy = Mass * Gravitational Force * Height

On the other hand, if you yourself want to jump off a cliff and you're standing on the edge of it, your potential energy is your mass times the local gravitation force times the height of the cliff.

Efficiency = Useful Energy Output/Energy Output * 100%

Essentially, the efficiency of screaming at Fletcher can be determined by dividing how much of the time you're screaming he's paying attention by how much you have to scream in the first place times a hundred percent. Not very good numbers, I'm afraid to say.

Work = Force * Distance

So, if you're dragging Fletcher along by the hair like that time with the Faceless Ones, the amount of work you've done at the end (in joules) is the amount of force you've used times the distance you've relocated him.

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**A/N: Just in case you were wondering where all this Fletcher-animosity is coming from, I'm assuming that since this is IGCSE stuff she'd somewhere between fourteen and sixteen which puts us at the point where Fletcher is around and a minor nuisance.**

**~Mademise Morte, March 4, 2013.**


	16. Chapter 16

As a child, I hated silence. I hated sitting still, I hated observing the peace, and I absolutely did not wish to calm down, because if I calm, if for even a moment I allow myself to slow, I will falter and I will fail, and _I will die_.

I've always associated it with worship. It is not to say that there was a lack of noise in our churches, for there were always the screams of our sacrifices and the heavy breath of those who watched, but there was something about wordlessness, about communion with something that transcends the need for speech, that impressed upon me the true horror of being mute. If you talk, you cannot scream.

So as I look upon you now, Ghastly Bespoke, as I look at you, trapped in your shell of stone, it is like I am the one that is bound, because even the act of seeing you, of recognizing your state, makes me feel constricted, caught, and so in the silence that surrounds you now, I feel threatened.

I am sorry. I thought I could do this, but I suppose that even I, even China Sorrows, simply am not that strong.

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**A/N: So since I am now temporarily tired of memorizing basic science facts, I'm posting snippets from when I tried and failed to do a year-long calendar last year. It was called Back of the Closet.**

**~Mademise Morte, March 14, 2013.**


	17. Chapter 17

The lights are far from each other, solitary hermits in their bed of sky. They gleam a little, but not enough that they can sense each other. Their glow tendrils out, falteringly, but their forms are visible from earth, if only in part.

The two men walk down the path in the dusky moonlight, speaking to each other in a fairly amiable fashion. At some point, this atmosphere intensifies, becomes almost intimate, and they are soon embracing each other fiercely, intensely, trying to reach out every bit as much as the stars are.

They are both a little monstrous, starlight or no. The slighter is hunched, with long nails and twisted limbs, with feral eyes and a strange hat. It wears a suit, mangled and ragged and torn away at by the years, and the suit does not fit in the least. It is masculine, but mostly nominally – it's not clear whether or not it is real enough to be called a male. It is a thing of legends, of Victorian penny dreadfuls.

The other, too, wears a suit, and this fits better. He is definitely human, and yet even more grotesque, for he is nothing more than a skeleton.

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**A/N: I don't think I have a vocabulary sufficient to express how much I love this ship.**

**~Mademise Morte**


	18. Chapter 18

Like mirror-glass, my life breaks apart uncleanly. It shatters into a million horrible pieces that you might think you can sweep up but show up forever after, drawing your blood and scratching your eyes, ripping into your flesh and sinking into your skin.

Like mirror-glass, there is nothing left. I sit here in the ruins of what might have passed for beauty but was mere vanity, nothing more than frippery, and I stare into the diamond-dust of everything I ever was, rendered useless by one little fall, and I am cursing your name, and I am wishing you every bad luck in the world, for seven years and seventy-seven.

You came into my life and you built me up, China. You were my everything and you made me so much better than I was. You made me into something I could stand, something that for once I didn't hate, and I loved you, China. I know you'll dismiss it, but I did.

You just had to ruin it, you just had to spoil everything. You're a being of malice, China, and you are nothing more. As long as I live, I, Eliza Scorn will never forgive you.

Or forget you.

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**A/N: Frippery is such a great word.**

**~Mademise Morte**


	19. Chapter 19

Long-legged and careful and mincing and just _awkward_, the Nye picks its way through the guests at the dinner party, shifty-eyed as it stares at what it considers to be barely more than breathing corpses with money. They money is really the only thing that's stopping it from converting them from exceptionally animated corpses to just the normal sort of corpses.

"I wasn't expecting to see anyone like you here at all. Hello." The woman has a wintry voice and a sultry smile.

"And what likeness might that be, lovely?" It tilts its head at her.

"Dead," she says, quite factually. "Obviously. Who are you, again? You don't feel at all like a zombie."

"I'm the Nye," it says calmly, "and I should think that I don't feel like a zombie. I'm not one, just for the record."

"Of course you're not. What are you, then?"

"I tend to try and avoid labels. They're so tiresome, aren't they?"

"That they are. I've spent my life trying to avoid them, but they seem to catch up with me every time."

"That is impressive."

"Indeed." She smiles, and after a moment, she extends a hand. "I'm Melancholia."

"Nice to meet you, Melancholia."

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**A/N: Unfortunately, money does make the world go 'round, and so every so often the Nye has to suit up and smile unnervingly at moneyed individuals.**

**~Mademise Morte**


	20. Chapter 20

Every time we touch, I learn something new about you.

The contour of your shoulder. The twist of your neck. The way your eyes glint when you're lonely, how you laugh when you feel empty, how you never speak when you're happy. The humming note of your contentment—low C—and the lilting, expressive way you have of gesturing. I learn your past, and your worries, and your hopes and every time we touch, I think that I am just that much closer to you, and every time I look at you, I realize how far I still am.

Your name is Bliss, and most of the time, you seem to subvert that. You are a serious man, and I can respect that. I know how I am not your first anything, never had any chance to be anything but, but I still delude myself into thinking that I am alone in knowing you as your name is.

Of course, I am not, Bliss, because you are wild, free, and you will be tied by no soul-binding, no emotional entanglement, because you are inscrutable and unknowable and beautiful all the same. Even with me, the last Teleporter in the world.

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**A/N: I so love Bliss-ships.**

**~Mademise Morte**


	21. Chapter 21

You are before me, and I can barely contain my heart, because I cannot believe that you are here. You, in all your spike-edged glory, you with your short nails and your muscled arms and your clothing that is just made for battle—tight and innocuous looking, not even leather, because you _laugh_ at people in leather, because you think that they're _overcompensating_—and you are not smiling because that would be beneath you, and as much as I am overjoyed, I am scared, because I am not your equal.

There's something about you that's somehow approachable, though, something about you that suggests a nature as sweet, as agreeable as your name would suggest. It's something about your eyes.

I lean forward and I kiss you. I am scared and I am nervous, because I am nothing more than a politician's daughter, and I could never be any match for you, the world-renowned fighter, the one and only Zephyr, and my pulse is too fast.

I wonder if you are going to try and kill me, or even just push me away. I almost expect you to, really.

You don't, and I am surprised. You don't fight me at all.

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**A/N: For the purposes of this 'verse, I'm naming Guild's daughter Mistral. She decided it after meeting Zephyr, thus the icky coordinated names.**

**~Mademise Morte**


	22. Chapter 22

I trace the line of your cheekbone, high and smooth and haughty, and you give out a low, ragged, shuddering sigh. Your head tilts back just so, and I ramp up the actions of my other hand. You shudder.

You are almost elegant in your suit, even when I have you pressed up against the wall, on your desk, your legs hanging out long and ineffectual. There is something about you, though, that seems completely and utterly uncivilized, absolutely loose and natural and wild.

You moan, and I lose control. I echo your sounds as I drive into you, animalistic as any of my kind, as any vampire is, and you just keep on taking. Your long, skinny fingers dig into my skin, and if it weren't for my state of excessive awareness, of constant distraction, I would hardly feel you. For all your bravado, you are nothing but weak in the end.

Certainly, you are weak for me. You murmur my name—_Dusk_—and I have to smile against your lips, because you, the fierce and the ever unyielding, are yielding for me. It's an amazing feeling.

You will never have any idea how much I love you, Crystal.

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**A/N: It's been a while since I've done the whole twist-ending thing. I forgot how fun it is.**

**~Mademise Morte**


	23. Chapter 23

"You're back." His voice is soft. "I wasn't expecting that."

The tall man in the long, dark coat leans against a wall and crosses his arms, looking pointedly away. "I should have thought that that would have been obvious, considering the look of abject shock on your face."

"You know I'm slow."

"In what capacity do you mean that?" There is an almost flirtatious edge to the Teleporter's smile.

"All kinds of capacities," whispers Anton as he approaches the other man almost hesitantly. After a moment's consideration, he extracts his hand from his pocket and places it against the shoulder of the man who is smoking a cigarette with an absentminded air.

"Oh, so now you're going to pin me to a wall and have your way with me by dint of pure brute strength?" Half regretfully, he drops the cigarette and extinguishes it with his heel.

"You can escape at any time if you really want to. We both know that."

"And so this is nothing more than a pretext. My unwillingness."

"I suppose it is."

"A fabulous, fabulous pretext…" Emmett Peregrine looks up at his lover, taking in the details of his face, and then he kisses him.

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**A/N: Consensual kink, yay!**

**~Mademise Morte**


	24. Chapter 24

"Let's run away together." There is a mad glint to your eyes as you pronounce the words, and I cannot believe that you are the one saying them.

After a moment's worth of silence, after spending a few seconds drinking in the beauty of your agonized uncertainty, your hesitation, after relishing your suspension, I nod and I smile. "Sure, let's do it," I say, and I make my voice as agreeable as I can. "It sounds like fun."

"Really?"

"Of course, Eliza. It's almost logical, considering the circumstances. How shall we go about this? The Midnight Hotel?"

"No, Anton would just send us packing again."

"You don't know that."

"I do. He holds grudges, and you jilted him."

I pause. "Ah. Yes. I suppose I rather did. Shall we do this the old-fashioned way, then?"

"Sounds reasonable. How long will you need to ready yourself?"

"I will be with you, won't I? I shall require nothing more."

And so it is that after centuries of life upon this earth, I, China Sorrows, an established and powerful individual in the world of magic, end up eloping with the girl of my every dream, as if we are two adolescents in love.

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**A/N: I guess China/Eliza can be sweet. Sometimes. Maybe.**

**~Mademise Morte**


	25. Chapter 25

"So, what would you like to do tonight?" He smiles at her politely, and she rolls her eyes.

"You are just taunting me, horrible man. You know we have work that needs to be done."

"Well, after that, of course. Hopefully the case will not take up the whole of the evening."

"It has done so for the past few weeks, so I don't see why it won't tonight." She shrugs at him.

"I might have spent the afternoon wrapping it up. We just need to file the reports, and we'll be done."

She gives a little shriek and jumps, clapping her hands with delight. He stares at her as if she has gone crazy, which is not that unreasonable a conclusion, all things considered.

"Are you quite all-right, Valkyrie?"

"Sorry. Yes. Absolutely. Would you like to go out for a walk, then? A nice, long, romantic walk under the moonlight?"

'I'd have no objections. Wouldn't you like dinner or something, though?"

"You can't eat."

"But you can."

"I suppose I could spend the evening being mean to you and lording my digestive system over you, but I won't."

"You are so considerate."

"Oh, I know." She laughs, grinning widely.

* * *

**A/N: I complain a lot about valduggery but I actually write quite a bit about it.**

**~Mademise Morte**


	26. Chapter 26

Covered in his jewelry and his tattoo-ink, shaded by the half-light with his eyes glowing pale blue in his possession, there is something strange to the air of the pale, skinny man with the sharp nose and the black-lacquered nails.

"Who are you now?" There is a certain amount of fascination in the tone of the Necromancer who is leaning against the wall, his legs crossed and his expression speculative.

The body of the Sensitive turns its head towards the death-magician and smiles. Without speaking, it stands, forcing its chair to judder and shake where it stands. It crosses the room, its steps quiet and deliberate, and it bends down and looks at him straight on, matching intense gaze with intense gaze.

They kiss, and after they've been at this for long enough for them to be entwined into each other with not much by way of clothing between them, the errant soul leaves Finbar Wrong, who is horrifically confused for a split second before shrugging inwardly and continuing what he's doing. He's not sure why he's screwing Solomon Wreath, but now that he is, he is sure as bloody Hell not about to question it.

Or, you know, stop.

* * *

**A/N: Finbar is such fun. :)**

**~Mademise Morte**


	27. Chapter 27

"Would you like some tea, Tanith?"

"No, thank you, Eliza, I would not like to have some tea."

"Why is that?" The redhead smiles politely.

"Because I would like very much to _leave_, Eliza."

"And why is that?"

"Because I wish to, Eliza. Is that not enough?" Tanith Low is yanking on her clothes, facial expression slightly panicked. She wants nothing more than to be away from here, except perhaps for last night not to have happened, which she realizes is probably impossible.

"I don't want for you to leave. Stay and have tea with me, Tanith. It makes me feel like I'm just some whore to you if you just go away now." Eliza looks with longing at the blonde who is now at least vaguely dressed in leather.

"Well, I don't know about you, but I think that the situation is pretty unsalvageable regardless of whether or not I have tea with you, because I'm going to feel like a whore in any case, so no thank you, Eliza, I do not want your goddamn tea."

The woman with green eyes pouts absently, mind presently elsewhere. "What about coffee, then?"

Tanith laughs now. "Fine, then. Coffee it is."

* * *

**A/N: Ah, Tanith. How we miss you.**

**~Mademise Morte**


	28. Chapter 28

Her fingers trail lightly over his arm, and she is wearing a sick, sick smile. There is a dazed quality to his expression, and an all-too-aware set to hers.

"Finish me," he whispers, and his voice is dry, rattling, hollow. "Or just leave me. Don't taunt me like this."

There is no humor in her as she looks into his eyes, seeming almost to stare into his soul, or at the very least between the glossy reflection of her own visage. "I would never taunt you if it wasn't absolutely necessary," she murmurs as she traces her hands up to cup his face lightly, putting slight pressure on him and forcing him to take a violent step backwards. "I thought you knew that already."

"Uh-huh," he says, shuddering and not sounding terribly convinced.

He is right not to be, for she is kissing him and her lips are warm and he is cold, and the life is leaving his body, creating in the place of the bizarre idiot of a man a broken corpse, because there is no one on this earth, no one in this dimension, who can even dream of defying the Terrifying Brain-Sucker of London.

No one.

* * *

**A/N: Sometimes I forget how lovely and lighthearted the earlier books are.**

**~Mademise Morte**


	29. Chapter 29

Running while holding someone else's hand is not that good an idea. It makes you much more likely to trip, for example, or possibly collide with something along the lines of a tree, or possibly a wall. If you fall, you will drag someone else down with you, and if they fall, you will fall too. Every stumble, every misstep, is amplified, and just that much more can go wrong.

They are running, and they are holding hands.

It is raining, and it is raining heavily. They can barely see anything, though the scarred man is keeping the damp off their skin as much as he can. Their breath is labored, and they are hyper-aware of the fact that even the slightest imbalance could lead to them dying.

It doesn't matter to them, the Elemental with the scarred face and the handsome Adept. They are Dead Men, after all, and possibly even dead men, and a risk like this means very little in the scheme of things. If they die tonight, at least they will have died together.

They are running from all that they fear, all that hates them and all that they hate. They are still holding hands.

* * *

**A/N: Shudder/Bespoke, yay. :D  
**

**~Mademise Morte**


	30. Chapter 30

There is trust in her eyes, and love and a wild, crazed abandon, and as Zephyr looks into her eyes, she wishes more than anything that the other girl were not mortal. Partially because she feels a great affection for her, of course, and partially because, in the end, the fighter doesn't really want anyone to die, but also because it would make it that much easier for her to refuse her request.

"No, no, no. No." Zephyr the quiet, she of the grim laconicity, is stuttering.

"Please?" There is a certain amount of calculated sweetness to her tone.

"Of course not. It's a horrible idea. A horribly, horribly _stupid_ idea. _No_."

"…"

"_No."_

"Have I recently told you how much I adore you?"

"I love you too, Mistral, but I really think you'll have to face the fact that this will not work. _No_."

"Why not?"

"You're small, you're weak, you have no magical aptitude whatsoever, and you could get yourself killed. You would also be endangering me. With all that in mind, no, you cannot accompany me in my next job."

"I think you're just being really ableist."

"I think you need to hush." Zephyr embraces her lover.

* * *

**A/N: Mistral's kind of a radfem. Which is, you know, not great, until you think about her father. It could, after all, be worse.  
**

**~Mademise Morte**


	31. Chapter 31

"You look unhappy."

"Shut up."

"Has the bleeding stopped yet?"

"Go away."

"Well, you must be feeling better if you can talk."

Valkyrie glares at him and, silently, flips him the bird.

"Or maybe not. So, what are you going to tell Kenspeckle this time? The truth? Because, if you really think about it, it sounds rather like a lie. And then he'll get angry, and he will berate me. And I do not like being scolded. It is not fun."

"In this case, you deserve it, and he doesn't really need an excuse to shout at you, insensitive little bugger." She scowls, staring off into the distance.

"You sound grumpy. Are you grumpy?"

"I think you need to be quiet, right now, or I will bash your goddamn skull in. Capisce?"

"Sounds like an awfully extreme thing to do. I am merely making sure that you are in at least moderate health after hitting yourself in the mouth with a wooden stave."

"I am, though I must question your sanity. I still have the stave, you realize, and I wasn't joking at all about bashing your skull in."

"Of course you weren't."

"Bugger off."

"I love you too, Valkyrie."

* * *

**A/N: Banter is fun. I like banter.**

**~Mademise Morte**


	32. Chapter 32

"Let's start a family together."

"That is such an incredibly screwed up idea. I'm barely out of my teens, Caelan! My life is nothing but one disaster after another! I have no sense of stability, no concept of responsibility, and, quite frankly, spend quite enough time trying to keep the two of us alive! Why would I possibly want to add any more to all my burdens?"

"I love you. A lot. Have I told you that recently?" The youthful-looking vampire smiles almost shyly at his lover as he twines himself around his partner's limbs.

"At great length, mostly when you want something from me. Have you even thought this through? We can't have a child! For one thing, we're both male."

"Obviously. I was thinking maybe adoption. There are so many impoverished, homeless children who could do with a nice, loving home."

"For another thing, our life is so unstable that no adoption agency would let us anywhere near children. Please, do see sense."

"But I want a tangible way of saying that we'll be together forever."

"See, that sounds plenty tangible to me."

"Of course it does. You have no romance in your soul."

Fletcher bursts out laughing.

* * *

**A/N: Sometimes Caelan sounds a bit too Wuthering Heights, and other times he's just Anne of Green Gables.**

**~Mademise Morte**


	33. Chapter 33

Her eyes are closed, and she is pretending that she is anywhere but here. She is not entirely sure what or where here is, but this lack of information is helping her pretense, and so she makes no move to educate herself.

Here is cold. She has vague memories of Gordon's house, last night, remembers staying there and reading until her eyes slammed shut while Stephanie clattered around the kitchen. She remembers the look on her sister's face when the phone rang, and she remembers the door being broken down. She remembers a scream, and not knowing whose it was.

She wonders if her sister is still alive, and the fear that this line of thought brings forces her to speak, to become aware of her surroundings, if only so she can escape and try to find Stephanie.

"Where am I?" she asks, looking around. She is in a very large room. Her voice is trembling, and she is shivering. She sees the most beautiful woman she has ever laid eyes upon, and she becomes still, completely focused on the lady with the long, dark hair.

"You are safe, Alison," says China Sorrows. "That is all I can tell you."

* * *

**A/N: Thus begin Alice's Adventures in LesboLand. :3**

**~Mademise Morte**


	34. Chapter 34

The thin, elegant man in the dark suit is staring out into the middle distance, wondering what lengths he will have to go to to get out of here. The room is filled to the brim with inane, chittering people, and he feels entirely out of his depth.

The beautiful, busty woman with the smoldering eyes is sauntering her way towards him. For the moment, she is the center of attention, but not for any virtue of loveliness. Even in the tight, lovely dress, she walks like a man, and her expression is so aggressive as to be unladylike.

"Get me out of here," she says abruptly. "I can't stand this a moment longer."

"What should I do? Pitch you out of the balcony?"

"That might be a start." Murder sighs, running her hands down over her thighs, just in case knives have miraculously appeared where her sheathes usually are. She feels naked without them, though of course that might have to do with her fairly skimpy attire.

"What would you owe me for the favor, though?" There's a sly edge to his smile.

She gives him an appraising look, and then she kisses him. "Absolutely nothing," she says, smiling.

* * *

**A/N: Jaron/Murder. Incredibly obvious, but still rather amusing. Kind of like Skulduggery/Wreath, but with more cleavage and less homosexuality.**

**~Mademise Morte**


	35. Chapter 35

It is shaded, sheltered and safe here, in the necropolis. The two young men, hardly more than boys, are standing too close together to be just friends, and still too far away from each other to be lovers.

"This is a really bad idea." There's a relaxed kind of lilt to the taller one's voice as he looks around, surveying the area with a fighter's darting gaze.

"Absolutely," comes the answer in a voice as high as to be a woman's. The speaker's eyes are dark, luminous in the parchment-white of his skin. He looks tired and drawn, like he is being eaten away at by some worry.

"So… Does that mean we can go somewhere nice and safe and warm and possibly drink tea and not risk being brutally murdered by one of your superiors?"

The effeminate boy laughs, a mocking cast to his tone. "Is that all you want right now? Heat?"

The other shrugs. "Sure, why not? Heat is good."

No more words are spoken, and none are needed, because it is quite obvious that this has given Solomon Wreath enough of an excuse to kiss Skulduggery Pleasant with great vigor. He needed the heat, after all.

* * *

**A/N: I don't think I've ever actually written outright Skul/Sol that wasn't in a cemetery.**

**~Mademise Morte**


	36. Chapter 36

"Mistral, I really wish you would stop following me around. It is rather distracting having to constantly worry about your safety, especially after telling you in no uncertain terms that I would much rather you stay behind."

The blonde girl rolls her eyes and keeps walking, arms crossed and lips pursed.

"Mistral, it's no good pretending you're not there. Firstly, I know that you are, because I always know when you're around. Secondly, your invisibility charm wore off about three hours ago."

"You mean I've been visible for three hours?" Mistral squeaks a bit.

"No, you haven't, but it's great to hear your voice." Zephyr grins widely.

"…"

"Oh, don't be so childish."

"I don't know what you were expecting. I was immature enough to follow you, after all."

Zephyr considers this. "Very true. You make a good point."

"Thank you." Mistral smiles, a little smugly.

"I take it that there is nothing I can do to persuade you to turn back?"

"Absolutely nothing."

"Fine, then." Without any further words, Zephyr slows her pace a little, dropping back and clasping her lover's hand.

"How did you know I was there?"

"I told you, Mistral. I always know where you are."

* * *

**A/N: This conversation kind of reminds me of The L Word's Molly and Shane so, uh... My headcanon for Zephyr is now Katherine Moennig. :)**

**~Mademise Morte**


	37. Chapter 37

The pianist in the suit with the long fingers and the tilted hat is staring intently at the tall figure leaning against the wall as he plays, trying to guess the thoughts and the feelings of this total stranger and supposing that he is failing miserably. The pub smells of cigar smoke, and it is far too warm. The pianist would like very little more than to be gone from here.

He rolls out a chord a little too abruptly, and he can see the amusement in the stranger's demeanor, something of a derisive laugh, a quick shrug of the shoulders after a straightening of the spine. He slips a chromatic scale into a bridge, and he gains a short half-skip of amusement. He finishes his piece with great aplomb, and he cares only for the laconic applause from the one who is now leaving the pub.

Skulduggery is leaving now too, for his curiosity has been caught, and he will not be satisfied until he has found again this individual and possibly asked them out for a meal of some sort, at least get their number.

He doesn't have far to search. The Nye is waiting outside the door.

* * *

**A/N: Random ship is random.**

**~Mademise Morte**


	38. Chapter 38

Their laughter fills the air, carefree and light. The day is young, and so is their joy. The sun's light is heavy, bright, and they are squinting, perhaps because of this, but perhaps from mirth. They are at peace.

"Do you ever think that you want a moment never to end and then realize how absolutely horrible that would be and then end up feeling just so incredibly claustrophobic?" There is a pensive hint to the shorter boy's tone as he looks down at the grass. He is leaning against a tree, and his hand is torturously near to the other male's.

"All the time. It's something of a shock when that doesn't happen, actually." He laughs. "A good kind of shock, though."

"What about now? Would you want now to last forever?" He licks his lips nervously, eyes still trained on the vegetation.

"Hm… Not quite."

Before the rejection quite kicks in, Solomon feels a larger hand rest on his, feels the warmth and the calluses and the sudden change in the emotional climate. He blinks, and he is not entirely sure what is happening anymore.

"I would now," says Ghastly, his voice soft, shy, and they both smile.

* * *

**A/N: This pairing makes me feel really really happy.**

**~Mademise Morte**


	39. Chapter 39

Behind the mask that is her delicately painted silk fan, China Sorrows is hiding. Her eyes are cast sideways, downwards, her lips are pursed behind their screen, and there is something about her that seems so old and so lonely that the various passers-by wonder, at the back of their brains, if she is a statue.

She is certainly as lovely as one.

The woman leaning against her umbrella has pensive eyes. She is not generally a very reticent kind of person, is the sort who will cheerfully give her opinion whether it is warranted or not, but for the moment, she is nothing more than a shy maiden, lining up with the rest of the hapless admirers.

"Oh, do stop that, dear. You know how annoying that is?" There is a tinge of amusement to China's voice.

"Obviously, but what you fail to take into account is that it is also just _incredibly_ amusing."

"For you, perhaps."

"Exactly."

"But not quite so much for me, so stop trying to break your poor umbrella and come keep me company."

"As you wish, my lady." She smiles, and her mirth is apparent.

"Oh, do shut up."

Smirking, Davina Marr does so.

* * *

**A/N: Davina is seriously one of my favorite characters to write.**

**~Mademise Morte**


	40. Chapter 40

You are back, and I cannot help but to grin.

You are not looking in my direction, and you are smiling faintly, and I wonder idly if you have found a lover yet, because you should absolutely have one. You should have every chance at happiness, dearling, and I wish you every joy.

For you, dear woman, everything. I give you my heart and my soul and everything of me that you want, and should you disdain me, then I allow you to burn me until I offend you no more. I beg you to dispose of me as you will.

"Hi," you say, turning to me now, and you are merry.

"Welcome home," I say softly.

"Oh, thank you, dear. Very sweet of you. And you're going to drive me home? That is such a nice gesture. I brought you biscuits too. You are most welcome." You pause. "Who the Hell told you I was returning today?"

"Your partner did. He's a very handsome man, Zephyr."

"Oh, babe, he's nothing. It's not like that. I have no eyes for him."

"For whom have you eyes?"

"You, of course. Only you, Caelan. It's always been you." Laughing, you embrace me

* * *

**A/N: Zephyr/Caelan is this utterly bizarre thing that still manages to be quite cute.**

**~Mademise Morte**


	41. Chapter 41

Careful as a clockwork child, the blond known variously as William-Raymond Sanguine, Billy-Ray, or just Sanguine, is making the bed, and he is being watched with a certain amount of disbelief by the dark-haired man who is sitting on the adjacent armchair.

"What happened to all your protests about there being no point in arranging the bedding if it was going to become messed up anyway?" There is a great deal of polite incredulity in his voice as he peers up over the top of his book, which is a deeply fascinating treatise on mirror neurons and neuroplasticity, very like most of the other tomes that rest upon his presently rather small bookshelf, with thanks to a clearance sale at the bookshop.

"You were ranting on about atmosphere and that kind of thing, so I just thought…" The blonde trails off, shrugging.

"How sweet. You were actually listening."

"I'm always listening!" Billy-Ray pouts as he shoves a pillow into place.

"Good," says Nefarian Serpine, putting his incredibly boring book aside and standing to embrace his lover, whispering in his ear a diverse range of threats, promises and praises, mixed in with chastisements and vows.

Billy-Ray cannot imagine a happier situation.

* * *

**A/N: Serpine can, but that's another story altogether.**

**~Mademise Morte**


	42. Chapter 42

Her skirt is green, and she likes the color. It is a circle skirt, made out of wool, and she does not like quite as much the texture of the fabric. Still, it is pretty and it is comfortable and it drapes well, so she supposes she can't complain.

She is sipping delicately her highly alcoholic, rather brightly-colored drink, and she is watching the girl who is walking into the bar, the blonde with the clavicles and the jaw and the cheekbones, with the plaid and the denim and the black leather boots.

They know each other, vaguely. China has been here every night for the past few months, and she's seen the blonde on a daily basis for the past few weeks, and she is waiting to be approached, because it suits her well to simply stay and wait for her prey to come to her on its own volition. It's just so much easier that way.

The blonde is approaching now, holding an alcoholic beverage of her own like a talisman. "Hello," she says breezily, and her voice is sweet. "You here on your own?"

"Who's asking?" asks China.

"My name's Melissa," she says, smiling a dazzling smile.

* * *

**A/N: After all, everyone loves China.**

**~Mademise Morte**


	43. Chapter 43

Ever a consummate busybody, there is nothing that Tanith Low finds either more fascinating or more perturbing than one whose exterior and demeanor misalign with their actual personality or beliefs. She is always tempted to try and unravel them, to tug and twist at them so she can understand them and use them to her liking.

Over the years, she has had many, many opportunities to practice this, and she thinks she's gotten rather good. She has, but evidently is still not as good as she could be, because she is presently rather stumped.

She has heard stories about him, of course, wild legends told by drunkards and believed by fools alone. She has wondered about the rumors, and she was thrilled and intrigued the first time she met him. He was an enigma, a closed book, and she just itched to try and deconstruct him.

She hasn't succeeded yet, but she will one day – if not because she really is that skilled in her art of poking and prying where uninvited, then because the urbane, uncivilized aberration that is the skeletal detective honestly does harbor quite a soft spot for her and wants very much to make her happy.

* * *

**A/N: Urbane is such a nice word.**

**~Mademise Morte**


	44. Chapter 44

He forces himself up from the ground. Slime and dirt have attached themselves to his back and to his legs and to his arms, and now they are transferring their way onto his wonderful gloves. This saddens him, for a moment, and it would sadden his wallet if his wallet were anywhere near. As it is, it is not.

He wonders briefly where he is as he looks about for his hat. The alleyway is familiar in an unfamiliar sort of manner. To him, all alleyways look essentially the same. He could be anywhere, though he hopes he's still in Dublin. It would be inconvenient if he weren't.

He locates his headgear on top of his head, and he ineffectually tries to brush the grime off it with his fingertips while he kicks his shoes, wondering if the bloodstains will come off the leather.

Bloodstains?

He looks about with renewed vigor, and soon he has located the mangled corpse of his former friend. He subsequently blacks out, ensuring that his shoes will forever be stained and that his suit will be absolutely unsalvageable.

Also, that his hat is killed. Skulduggery never really manages to decide which loss he regrets more.

* * *

**A/N: Poor hat.**

**~Mademise Morte**


	45. Chapter 45

"Do you ever miss her?"

"All the time," says China briskly as she stacks up a pile of books. "It doesn't matter, though, because there is no point in wanting the past to return."

"How did she die, again?"

"I didn't kill her, if that's what you mean. She killed herself."

"She never seemed like the suicide kind."

"She made herself into a puppet to be controlled by the soul of one of the dark, twisted Gods we all used to worship."

"On second thoughts, she always seemed exactly like the suicide kind."

"I daresay." China smiles. "Are you still in the faith, dear?"

"What else is there?" She shrugs. "It connects me well to all the lovely gossip, and it amuses me."

"Would you have done what she did?"

"Wouldn't you?"

"Of course I would have, if it were a hundred years ago."

"Then I suppose that's my answer. A hundred years ago, yes."

"Why not now?"

Eliza gently reaches out to clasp China's hand. "Nowadays, there are things that I treasure more than my faith."

"It's a pity Murder never found anything of the sort."

"China," she says sweetly, "Do we really have to talk about her now?"

* * *

**A/N: Yes, Eliza, we really do, because you're creepy and manipulative and talking about Murder is more fun than thinking about you.**

**~Mademise Morte**


	46. Chapter 46

"Mother, when are you going to stop trying to set me up with a husband? I promise you, I will not give you any illegitimate grandchildren even without one, so you can stop worrying." Tanith Low pauses to whack the man next to her on the head, since he is looking like he is trying not to laugh audibly. "Really."

Despite having been offered bodily injury for his mirth, he continues to silently convulse with amusement.

"What do you mean, you want descendants? Shouldn't you be looking to my brother the streetwalker for those?"

He considers being offended, but decides in favor of continuing to annoy his sister by remaining in a state of merriment.

"No, mother, I am not planning to settle down while I still have my looks, and certainly not if they're all that the person cares about. Now, I'm going to hand the phone to my brother, and he is going to tell you all about his latest trick." Tanith accordingly hands the phone over, and now it is her turn to cackle at the pained expression on her brother's face as he is lambasted with great enthusiasm by their mother over his choice of profession.

* * *

**A/N: Oddly, as a fandom, we don't seem to do much with Tanith's brother.**

**~Mademise Morte**


	47. Chapter 47

"Get gone," he says, frowning.

"No," is the response, delivered with a smile. Solomon Wreath is delicately adjusting his sleeves, staring deeply into the mirror on the wall as he does so, perched on the edge of the table with his toes pressed against the floor.

"Please, Cleric Wreath, you are being obstructive to my work."

"I know," says Solomon, gently fluffing out his hair with his fingertips. "That's most of the fun of it, to be perfectly honest."

"Will you please leave? I'll come and look for you when I'm done."

"Really?" asks he as he begins to straighten his collar, grinning wickedly.

"Probably not, but I thought it was worth a try."

"Perhaps it was." Solomon is now contemplating the possibility of eyeliner as he regards his reflection in the looking-glass. "Has anyone ever told you straight out how boring you are?"

"My wife, many times."

"Ah, of course. Your wife." The corner of his lip curls with a certain amount of distaste as he pronounces the word. "How is she?"

"She hates me. You knew that, though."

"I did not," he says, smirking. "Fabulous to hear, though."

"Leave, Wreath."

"Where would the fun be in that, Thurid?"

* * *

**A/N: Ah, Solomon. How we adore you.**

**~Mademise Morte**


	48. Chapter 48

The sun is spilling off your shoulders, setting your skin aglow as if you yourself are radiating light, and you are strong and you are beautiful and you are more inhuman and more human than anything than anything I have ever seen, and at this moment, I want you more than anything.

There is something soft in your eyes as you step away, something sweet and kind and lovely, and I remember why I ever fell for you in the first place, because you are not only the incarnation of all that is good, you are as mortal as all the rest of us, make yourself seem almost attainable, though of course you aren't.

More than ever, I want you. I know that I am as good as nothing to you, am nothing but and will never be anything more than weakness, than sadness and melancholia, and I suppose Melancholia as well. Still, I have it in me to hope and lust and hope some more.

You are wonderful. You are a Goddess, and you are everything that is worth wanting, and until the day I die, I will never desire anyone as much as I have desired you, Valkyrie.

* * *

**A/N: I don't know whether to be thrilled or horrified by that pun.**

**~Mademise Morte**


	49. Chapter 49

She jumps off the roof of the building. He is watching with a cryptic smile, and is still staring as she lands, all fluidity. He has still not moved when she is walking into his shop with a sway in her hips and a grin on her face.

"You're up late," she comments as she runs her fingertips over the fabric on the walls, her eyes shut. "Were you waiting for me?"

He is quiet.

"I suppose not. You never do, do you? I wonder, sometimes, honestly, how much of a difference it makes that you are unfrozen now. I actually wonder if you're really back, honestly. Seems to miraculous."

She shrugs. Dusting her hands off and licking her lips, she looks him in the eyes.

"Too miraculous, really. Tell me your bad news."

"I can't have you around," he says. "You're poisonous and you're malicious and you are destructive and you destroy everything around you. You are harmful, and I don't want you in my life."

She has not shifted her gaze, and now it is cold and it is saddened. "I thought more of you, Ghastly," she says simply, and then Tanith Low turns and leaves the store.

* * *

**A/N: I guess I never really understood the appeal of this pairing.**

**~Mademise Morte**


	50. Chapter 50

Dexter Vex, with his harsh eyes and his pale hair, is frowning slightly as he looks away. Ireland has changed, he thinks, and not necessarily for the better.

"Are you quite all-right, sir?" she asks, and he turns to her and he flashes her a grin almost absent-mindedly. She swoons a little bit.

"I am fine," he says, and now he is looking away again. "Surprised, is all."

"We all were," she says, and she is simpering. "Where were you, though, that you could have missed the news?"

"Around," he says, deliberately vague.

"Was it terribly horrible?" she asks, voice a squeak.

"This is worse," he answers simply, and now he is walking away and blinking violently.

Ireland has changed, he thinks again, and now there is a grim cast to the thought, a hint of finality, a touch of rage. Ireland has changed, and not for the better.

Because the one he loved most in the world is gone. There is a heaviness to his tread that was not there before, and he thinks wryly that it is from the extra burden on his heart.

Ireland is changed, and it will never be the same again. Not without Gordon.

* * *

**A/N: In case you haven't noticed, I really like crack pairings.**

**~Mademise Morte**


	51. Chapter 51

"And who are you?" she asks of the statuesque woman with the red hair and the stunning cheekbones, who is beautiful in a technical sort of way, though nothing next to China.

"My name is…" The woman pauses as China Sorrows elbows her violently in the ribs, and she winces. It looks like it must hurt quite a bit. "My name doesn't matter. It's okay, Alison. Don't worry. You're safe here."

"Where is my sister?" she asks, and her attention is back to China, since the redhead has been so marvelously useless. "Where is Stephanie?"

The two women exchange looks, hands reaching out and clasping apparently without them being conscious of the action. "It might be a while before you see her again," says the one with the red hair and the high-heeled shoes, and she is staring at the ground now, staring at her uncomfortable-looking shoes.

"Why?" asks Alison, and she is looking intently at China.

"Don't worry about it, dear. We think she's safe, and you definitely are, so there is no need to fret."

Irked by the lack of good answer, Alison bites her lip and begins formulating ways to get away from these two useless women.

* * *

**A/N: The nice thing is that this is continuing as a miniseries. The somewhat less nice thing is I have no idea where I was going with it before.**

**~Mademise Morte**


	52. Chapter 52

Against the armchair, she is slouching with a faint, cryptic smile, and she is watching him dress. "Are you absolutely sure you must leave?" she asks, and her voice is low, rich, velvet against velvet at four in the morning.

"Yes," he says laconically as he begins to lace his shoes, unaware of the fact that his shirt is still halfway unbuttoned. She is staring at him, and her gaze is fiery-smoldering.

"It has been fun knowing you," she says, and she stands now, thrusting out hip and shoulder. He has to look up from his shoes, and now he gulps.

"And you, Françoise," he says politely, and she is laughing because he looks adorably badly dressed, with everything misaligned and only partly fastened.

"You men are so useless," she murmurs as she steps close to him, and he does not protest when she gently begins to adjust his clothing. "Even you who work so much with clothes."

"Um. I would like very much to leave now."

"Oh, hush," she says, and then Françoise is grinning and tugging Ghastly Bespoke into her arms, melting into him and making sure that he will not be gone for at least three hours.

* * *

**A/N: She's fun to write, except her name's kind of a pain to type.**

**~Mademise Morte**


	53. Chapter 53

"I can't stand it any longer. Stop, Skul. Just… Stop." He is frowning, and the laughing man who has been stumbling about the room in a vague imitation of a waltz is smirking.

"It can't be that bad, surely," he says, and he careens straight into the scowling blond who has his arms akimbo and his mouth twisted with irritation. Inexorable, like some manic hurricane, Skulduggery sweeps his friend into a loose orbit, still humming energetically and without much of a concern for pitch.

After a moment's struggle, the blond starts to correct his friend. It starts with him singing gently with his clear, smooth voice over the busy hum, and then he forces him to slow, to become measured. With feet and hands, he adjusts legs and arms, and before too long, they are dancing both sedately and well.

Finally, they collapse, and Skulduggery is laughing and the other is just smiling. "What is it?" inquires Skulduggery, voice warm.

"I am amazing," is the answer, spoken smugly.

"That you are," responds Skulduggery, and before anything more can be said, Skulduggery Pleasant is kissing one of the dearest friends he has on this earth, and Dexter Vex is kissing back.

* * *

**A/N: Presumably an improvement on turnip-ism.**

**~Mademise Morte**


	54. Chapter 54

"That's a rather horrific scowl. Are you lost, dear, small child?"

"Not in the least," says Alison, walking faster. "Are you color-blind?"

"What a strange thing to ask. I don't think I am, though if I was, I doubt I would know. Why do you think I would be?"

"Well, based on your hair. I'm wondering if you meant to get hair dye that would make you blonde but ended up with blue instead because you can't differentiate between yellow and blue." Alison grins, every inch an impudent teenager.

"I'll have you know that it took me a very long time indeed to find this shade of blue!"

"Did it?"

"Yeah. I had to go into three shops."

"Three isn't that many."

"I don't get out too much." Clarabelle shrugs. "So, if you are not lost, where are you going?"

Alison blinks quickly, and she forces herself to shrug. "I'm looking for my sister, actually."

"And who might she be?"

"Stephanie Edgley," says Alison, wondering if she should just start running now.

"Never heard of her," says Clarabelle breezily. "Why are you looking for her?"

"Because I don't know where she is. Obviously."

"So you _are_ lost," says Clarabelle, smiling.

* * *

**A/N: Clarabelle is really fun to write dialogue with.**

**~Mademise Morte**


	55. Chapter 55

She is laughing, and the sound is sweet. It has a kind of innocence, a blurry unawareness that is utterly appealing and as adorable as it is worrying. It diffuses into the air of the room, covers up its shadows and staves away every bad memory that has ever thought to make its home.

She is grinning too, the corners of her lips pulled wide and careless, and that makes the world just a little bit brighter, because that kind of happiness is highly communicable.

They are sprawled on the sofa together, and their limbs are loosely twisted and tangled into each other, interwoven like so much yarn. Crystal had been reading, but had lost track of the page, and the book she had been holding at an arm's length had fallen onto her face, whence she is carefully removing it with her fingertips held firm and her shoulders shaking in exhaustion.

Carol is laughing, and Crystal doesn't care about anything else in the world, because the one she loves most in the world is content, and so she is, and so nothing can topple her from her mood, from this feeling of indomitability.

That is how she feels. Unconquerable.

* * *

**A/N: I do so enjoy writing the twins.**

**~Mademise Morte**


	56. Chapter 56

She is darting about above him, and her laughter is echoing and sweet in the lazy-humid-warm evening. He is looking up, and he is sweating (or perhaps simply having water condense on him) and he is smiling as well, because her vigor is infectious.

"Join me do," she says, when she has finally caught her breath to an extent, though she is still climbing, still striving and straining and reaching for things greater than she is, as she has done and will do for every day of her life, because that is the whole point of living, or so she thinks.

"Why?" he asks simply, and he is sedentary, placid, docile, a sheep waiting for either guidance or slaughter, with a simple trusting faith in others to decide which it should be.

"It's fun," she says simply, and then she lets herself drop down onto his lap. He squeaks in pain and vague indignation.

"Was that fun too?" he asks, raising an eyebrow.

"Absolutely," says she, and she pats him on the head, and now he is reaching out and tugging at her face.

In the muggy-sticky-hot evening, in the careful arms of Caelan, Zephyr finally slows to a still.

* * *

**A/N: I honestly find this ship distressingly cute.**

**~Mademise Morte**


	57. Chapter 57

He is bored, and so he is flickering from place to place, in hope of tiring himself out so very much that he will just fall asleep, because it is four in the morning in Dublin and he is jet-lagged and wants very much to sleep.

It is lonely at four o' clock, he has found. Hardly anyone is awake.

He has been to quite a few places already, having been doing this for the better part of the last two hours and despairing ever more of any chance of managing slumber. He has scared various cats, late-night lovers and lurkers alike, and a group of Japanese tourists who seemed similarly unwilling to tire.

He is now on the rooftops, and he is crossing his legs and looking down, at the gently glowing lights, and he becomes aware of another presence.

"Beautiful, isn't it?"

Fletcher turns and smiles serenely, not even disturbed by the appearance of the individual perched next to him, with the vacant stare and the cryptic grin. "You have no idea how nice it is to hear your accent," Fletcher says.

Springheel Jack looks at him with surprise for a moment, and then they begin to laugh.

* * *

**A/N: Basically, shipping based on geographical origin.**

**~Mademise Morte**


	58. Chapter 58

The sound of heartache is silence. It is looking into your eyes and seeing nothing that in any way reflects what I know is shining out of mine. It is leaning against you, pulse racing and head light, and feeling your warmth and your skin, and knowing that this means so much less to you than it does to me.

Heartache is feeling alone when I am right next to you. It is being nothing but conflict and turmoil, without and within. It is wanting nothing more than for this to be over and nothing less than for this moment to be eternal. It is not knowing what to do.

I never thought I would be this weak, this passive. I am Stephanie Edgley, and I am also Valkyrie Cain and Darquesse and a hundred other things. I am strong.

When I am with you, though, when I am in your presence and caught helpless in your inescapable gaze, I am powerless. I cannot resist, and still I cannot make myself obey you entirely.

You tear me apart, China Sorrows. You twist my heart into nothingness, and it is never more than a game.

All the same, I adore you.

* * *

**A/N: I don't think there's such a thing as non-dysfunctional China/Val.**

**~Mademise Morte**


	59. Chapter 59

She is not in the Necropolis any longer. It has been a long time since she stepped into that place. It has been a long time since she gave up her ring, after all.

Her parents had been cremated, and there was never anyone else that she cared about enough to go and visit after they died. Never anyone else that was mortal, anyway.

She is not in the Necropolis, but all the same, she is surrounded by the dead.

The sun isn't shining particularly brightly, but it isn't dark or rainy. There are clouds, and they are more than wisps, less than bulks. They are kind of fluffy and a little bedraggled around the edges. They're okay, for clouds.

She hears them whispering to her, the voices of those gone, and she wants to run from them, as she does every day of her life. She doesn't, though, because she has before, and it does nothing.

She is done with running.

She sees him from the corner of her eye as he darts along, and she wonders if she should follow him. That would be the road only to more madness, of course, because she would not only be hearing the dead but also seeing them move and watching them speak.

She follows him, though, because she is tired of avoiding things. She never really liked it in the first place, and it has always struck her as meaningless.

She catches up with him, on her tiptoes, having skipped her way to him. She is grinning widely, because she is happy.

She is happy because the voices have stopped, as they always do when she is in his presence, and the presence of those like him.

Life is always a little brighter when she is with the vampire Dusk.

* * *

**A/N: So, uh, according to my original notes, this is Valkyrie. To be honest, on re-read, it sounds a whole lot like Melancholia. So, uh, read it however you want, I guess.**

**~Mademise Morte**


	60. Chapter 60

Dust is the only thing around here these days. Dust, dust and more dust.

Oisin is lonely, trapped inside the little stone. He cannot escape, even for his own amusement, because the damned thing is dead. He had thought, once, when he was young and handsome and intelligent-to-a-point, that being immortal would be nice.

It isn't. This existence is nothing but solitude and sadness, and he half wishes himself dead.

One of the worst things about it is that he doesn't even know if he is alive. He'd like to hope he isn't, because he'd probably be old and senile and stupid by now.

What a horrible thought. He would shudder at it, if he could move.

He likes to imagine horrible demises for himself, gory, lively deaths around many people. He likes the thought of being mourned, of having left a lasting impression on many, and most of the time he even manages to gloss over the fact that it is much more likely that he would one day just never wake up from his slouching rest over his desk, and that no one would care enough to notice his passing beyond wanting to get rid of the corpse.

One day, he hears a voice, and he accepts that he is going crazy, that the echo stone is malfunctioning.

"Are you absolutely sure about this?" It is a female, and she sounds familiar, though older than in his recollection. This is a depressing thing.

"Yes," says another voice, and it is thin and hollow in the way that echo voices tend to be.

Oisin's inhabitance is struck with electricity and magic, and suddenly Oisin is no longer alone, because the imprinted mind of Gordon Edgley is in communication with him, and now there is so much more than dust.

* * *

**A/N: Somehow the fact that this pairing has a reason to work makes it feel significantly less fun.**

**~Mademise Morte**


	61. Chapter 61

She is awoken by the smell of tea. It is green tea, unflavored and brewed from whole leaves, and the scent is strong and vital. She smiles widely, because any day that starts involving tea in any way other than its absence is going to be a good one.

She sits up and she opens her eyes and she smiles even more, because any day beginning with a beautiful woman in a state of relative undress _and_ tea is definitely going to be, in one way or another, memorable.

"You're awake," says the beautiful woman, and she is smiling too, the corners of her pale eyes crinkling.

"Obviously I am," says Davina, and after a moment she laughs. "Thank you for noticing."

"But of course." China extends a hand, and the hand is holding a bowl of tea. "For you," she says, and her voice is sweet.

Davina thanks her calmly, and she drinks. The beverage is excellent, calming to the throat and to the soul, or so she thinks in an absent aside to herself. Her mind is flickering every-which-way, and almost certainly, this is caused by her proximity to one who is both the loveliest of all women and the one who has stolen her heart completely, and without a second thought.

They are quiet for a while, drinking their tea. Eventually, the tea is gone, but the silence persists, kept carefully. They are happy enough without words, are content to enjoy each other's presence without the intrusion of speech.

"I must be the luckiest person in the world," says Davina, who has never been all that comfortable with wordlessness.

China shrugs. "Whether or not you are, there is nowhere you would rather be at this moment in time, is there?"

Davina chuckles softly. "Of course there isn't."

* * *

**A/N: I really miss Davina. She was fun.**

**~Mademise Morte**


	62. Chapter 62

She feels lost.

All her life, she has strived not to be that person. She has always known where she's going and how she will get there. Now, she doesn't, and it worries her. She lives out her days, and she wonders how it ever came to be like this.

She still strives, of course. She has to, because she is Tanith Low, and even if she has seen better days, greater things, even if she feels shifting and rootless and unstable, she will always strive. But now, all her struggles and her dreams feel weak, hollow. They don't belong to her.

She knows that there's nothing forcing her to stay, by his side, tending to him and their spawn, but she stays, and every day she goes through without passion, without love for what she's doing, and every day she wonders what's keeping her.

She can't look out the window any longer. It makes her want to jump, and that worries her too.

She is good. She is at most things, if she really tries, but she wonders if it can be called positive when the one thing she can't manage is thinking that it's _enough_.

She's a good wife, a good mother, a good _femme de foyer_, but that is all that she is now, and she misses the destruction. For so long, it was so much to her, and it wasn't that easy to give up.

One day, she snaps, and she kills the man she once thought she loved, and she finally jumps out of the window, and as she runs down the wall she is laughing.

Tanith Low is rotten inside. Her true joy is in chaos and killing and she doesn't care, because with them, she has never felt lost. Ghastly could never compete.

* * *

**A/N: Yeah so I wasn't joking when I said I didn't really get the point of Ghastly/Tanith.**

**~Mademise Morte**


	63. Chapter 63

Consumed by loneliness, he is walking. The moon is high and the cold is bitter, and he is aimless.

He sees Valkyrie out of the corner of his eye, and he considers going to talk to her, even though he knows how much that would tear him up inside. He doesn't, in the end, because she looks quite busy as she is, with the girl with the hair that is spiky and short and blue.

Next, he sees China Sorrows. She is walking too, and yet she is so, so different from him, because she is purposeful and she is focused, and she seems almost cheerful in her confidence. He tails her for a little while, and he is leaning against the wall with his arms crossed and a fierce smile when she quietly and carefully commits murder. After that, she goes home, and she seems much freer, though bent with exhaustion. He doesn't follow her this time.

He is wandering still, determined to wear at himself until he can fall asleep without thinking, because thinking is by far overrated, or so he thinks, when he meets Caelan, and now he is definitely not anywhere near to slumber.

The vampire's eyes glow in the darkness, with a curious hunger and a hint of lust. He is still humanoid, and placing something shiny into his pocket.

Fletcher is surprised until he recognizes the object. A syringe.

They are wordless, consumed by want, and Fletcher feels more real than he has in weeks. Finally, he is no longer unanchored. He has found safety, even though it's from an unlikely source.

He is happy.

That is, until the morning breaks, and slowly but surely he becomes aware of his memories, and of the fact that the vampire known as Caelan is long dead.

* * *

**A/N: ****Whether you think the guy is a reforming vamp or some random junkie Goth, you kind of have to feel sorry for him.**

**~Mademise Morte**


	64. Chapter 64

China Sorrows learns the art of deception at her mother's knee. She is in the wings, watching silently, as the woman weaves her webs of hate, as she sets and baits her traps, as she quietly reels in her victims. She is taking notes as she sees man after man go through the house, in for a night and never ever returning.

She is far too young when she tries it herself. She doesn't know this, and so she succeeds beyond her wildest dreams. What starts out as a fancy, a tiny version of the grandeur she has been raised with quickly escalates, becomes so much greater than she ever hoped to accept.

One after another, they try their luck, and some of the time they even get what they wanted. It is never what they need, of course, and she makes sure that they know that, but all the same, it is what they set out for, and sometimes it makes her smug when she thinks about this.

She becomes known. She has to, of course, and she enjoys it. She even takes on apprentices, most notably the lovely redhead who is so jealous it is almost endearing. She plucks them out from her usual gathering pool, and she thinks that these are blessed, because they get both what they want and what she wants for them.

And then Murder happens.

She is bold and she is strong and she is beautiful. She knows what she wants, and what she wants is what she needs, and she waltzes into China's life, and she captures her as neatly as China ever could have another.

China learnt deception from her mother, but from the numerous men she saw who must have been like her father, she learnt something much more.

Surrender.

* * *

**A/N: This would be a possible explanation for how China could be of Asian descent and Bliss not - they'd be half-siblings.**

**(Though I must say my headcanon China is definitely not Asian at all.)**

**~Mademise Morte**


	65. Chapter 65

She has the world to live for.

Everything is beautiful, and everything is new. She views it, not through a cloud, not through a haze, as so many people think she does, as though she is a newborn, as if she is an Impressionist painter with a tray of orange and pink. Every day, she opens her eyes, and every day she is greeted by a new world.

You never see the same universe twice, because in every moment, it is shifting and changing and becoming something beautiful and something new, and so she looks and looks and looks, and she knows that she will never be able to see it all, and that makes her impossibly happy.

She tugs people into her quest to see as much as she can, to live as much as she can, and she does so effortlessly, without them even realizing it. She pulls them along like they are balloons on string, and they let her, because without even realizing it, they know the nobility of her mission.

She lives for the small things. The details. The patterning of light on cloth, a creasing of a smile, a balance so off kilter that it almost works. She goes through her life lost in them, so much so that she never sees the bigger picture.

That's okay. She's happy as she is.

One day, her world falls apart, and it hurts at her heart. She defends herself through the details, as she always has, and she heals.

Spikes of hair cut short and made a brilliant blue that reminds her of kingfishers. Scalpels melted into nothing but twisted, worthless scrap metal. Angry eyes becoming empty, becoming closed.

Clarabelle has the world to live for now, it's true, but only because she has absolutely nothing else.

* * *

**A/N: I really truly enjoy Clarabelle.**

**~Mademise Morte**


	66. Chapter 66

Without you, Skulduggery, I would have been nothing.

Now, I know that I probably shouldn't have said that. You're going to be insufferable about that for ages, aren't you? You'll primp and preen and bask in my praise, and while this may all very well be justified, it will irritate those around you no end.

Just as well I won't be around for it, I suppose.

Somehow, though, the thought makes me feel incredibly sad. I know that I am old, by the standards of the world that you have never cared that much for, and I know that I am feeble and senile and silly, but the thought of spending so much as a week without you, the thought of spending years deprived of your arrogance and your agonies and your grace… It hurts.

It hurts, Skulduggery. So much.

But yes. Anyway. The point of this letter. I am growing closer to my death with every day, and I suppose we all are, and I have no intention whatever of perishing any time soon, but the fact of the matter is that you will probably last much longer than I. So here are my thanks to you.

For the first time in my life, you made me feel like I fit in, like the world made sense, when you introduced me to the world of the magical. You gave me a career, by bringing me to all those wonderful, wonderful stories.

You gave me love, and that is something for which I am eternally grateful. Because, you know what? All those women meant nothing. Not compared to you.

Oh, wipe that grin off your face. I was never brave enough to say it to your face, which is why you'll only get it once I'm dead.

It's true, though.

* * *

**A/N: It took me ages to realize, but Gordon's actually really fun to write.**

**~Mademise Morte**


	67. Chapter 67

In the hairline crack between evening and night, she is movement.

She is running, and while she has run much, much faster, on colder, fiercer nights than this, it is exhausting her, because every moment spent out here alone is a moment that could be spent safely with her friends, with those she loves.

It's always like this with her. She is always chasing, chasing, chasing, and she is never really happy to be still. When it is the edge of dawn, she will be impatient to leave her bed, or else to get back to it. When she is sad, she is reaching constantly for a time when she won't be, and even when she's happy, she itches for trouble.

She is bored when her time is empty and she is tired when it is filled, and she is never not-striving. She wants perfection, and even though she may never reach it, she tries.

Right now, she is running to get away, and she is running because she is scared. Her breath is quick and heavy and loud, her footsteps even more so. She is tense, and with every action, she is just trying to put more distance between her and China Sorrows.

There is exactly one thing that Valkyrie knows for certain at this moment, one thing that isn't muddled by the haze of adrenalin and fear, and that is that she will never be able to better China. She knows that whatever part of perfection she can find will never be able to compare, and she knows that she will not care, in the end.

Because she will stop. She will stop striving. She will never better China, she knows that very well, but it won't be important. She is content with hanging on for dear life.

* * *

**A/N: The interesting thing is that, like Fletcher/Caelan, I don't particularly like either Val or China individually but I quite enjoy the pairing.**

**~Mademise Morte**


	68. Chapter 68

The shadows of the trees and the light that struggles through them form odd shapes on the ground and the surface of the water. They ripple, almost malevolently so.

From the shadows of loneliness, she sings out to him. He hears, and he follows.

Time has been unkind to them, the years flashing by and draining them more and more. Now they are ravaged and worn, and it matters not to either of them. They wear their age with pride.

Even so, it isolates them. The world is young, is fresh, is beautiful, and often, it feels like it has left them behind, and so it is that she chants her sirensongs and so it is that he is walking towards her, wincing with the sounds of dying or dead vegetation with every step he takes.

The voices he has heard for so long worry him and distress him and uplift him. They speak in tongues that he shouldn't understand but somehow does, and they separate him.

She has always been separate, or so it seems sometimes. She knows, of course, that there was a time before, when she was strong and youthful and bright, but that seems so far off. Now, she is mostly just lonely.

When he finds her, after destroying countless plants that didn't have much of a will to live in any case, they exchange no words. She falls silent, and their gazes lock. They do not need speech - their thoughts are as close as to be the same. The silence stretches on and on and on, and it feels like nothing to them. In a way, it is.

In a very strange way, they are the same, the sea-witch-hag with the dark eyes and the man out of Victorian myths. They know that much.

* * *

**A/N: I like this ship a great deal.**

**~Mademise Morte**


	69. Chapter 69

He feels like he is being buried by his paperwork, and wants very much to have someone to complain to about this. It is not that he particularly objects to his toil, mind, because he doesn't, but a little company would be nice, or so he is thinking to himself.

Sometimes he wants to laugh, when he looks at where he is now in life, at what he is doing with himself. When he was young, he would have. Life behind a desk had always looked interesting, always looked comfortable, but he had never even considered it for himself. He was too good at violence.

He wonders what his life would have been like if he had been weak, if he had been buried in paperwork from the start, and then sometimes he really does laugh, because the thought is just so ridiculous. For one thing, his life what probably have been a lot shorter.

For another, it would have been a lot more boring. It is when he reaches this stage of his thought processes that he tries to shake himself out of his reverie. Sometimes he doesn't quite manage this, and so continues his train of thought.

His life would be boring, because Erskine Ravel would never have fallen hopelessly, desperately in love with Anton Shudder.

Thinking about this makes him happy that life is the way it is, and sometimes even inspires him to work harder, to bulldoze his way through the various tedious documents and tasks, and sometimes it deflates him so utterly that he will collapse onto the desk that feels so strange and foreign and wish that he were with Anton at that very moment.

This is usually when his secretary enters the room and hits him on the head with a heavy book.

* * *

**A/N: Sassy secretary is sassy. I wonder who she is.**

**~Mademise Morte**


	70. Chapter 70

Her hand is cool in mine, and despite the traumatically torrid heat of the sunlight, I feel somewhat at peace.

Only somewhat, though, because I am not well suited to this kind of heat in any way whatsoever.

"This is absolutely disgusting," I say flatly as I look up as the sky. It is clouding over for its daily thunderstorm, and still the air is as horribly hot as ever.

"Don't be sad," she replies, and the corners of her eyes crinkle. _She_ doesn't look the least bit ruffled, damn her, remains as immaculate as ever while I am collapsed and disheveled. "Be happy."

"Why should I do that?" I ask petulantly while I contemplate her accent. It is lovely, like everything about her apart from her place of residence.

"Because you are here with me and the sun is shining."

"The former, certainly, but I fail to see how the latter is in any way positive."

She hushes me, and with her other hand she traces the line of my jaw. "Then be happy because the rain is coming, and so is the nighttime, and be happy because you can hear the wind."

I am quiet, and she is right. "Thank you, Françoise," I say softly, and she says nothing for a moment, and then she smiles widely. She really is beautiful, with her smooth skin and her coffee complexion and her smile. She has a wonderful smile, and for a moment I think that that is almost enough to make all this worthwhile. Almost.

"Anything for you, Davina," she says in response, and she kisses me. Her lips are cool too, and soft and sweet, and this really is enough to make all this worth suffering through. _She_ is enough.

Which is really why I'm here, I suppose.

* * *

**A/N: ****I have become aware of the potential havoc I can wreak with Françoise's character... :)  
**

******~Mademise Morte**


	71. Chapter 71

The silence has stretched beyond the point where it is merely awkward. It has become as good as solid, an unbreakable barrier between the two of them. They are looking at each other, and neither of them wants to contemplate speech, because they have become trapped, exceptionally stupid deer caught in exceptionally bright headlights composed of a stillness in the air and a horrible, horrible lull in the conversation.

She looks down at her hands, and they are as immaculate as ever, with the paint on her nails unmarred and those nails perfectly shaped. She looks back up to him, and now he is inspecting his hat, which he has placed on his crossed legs. Apart from a few nicks in the brim, it's in surprisingly good shape.

The clock marks out the hour, and they are both brought great joy from this, because it has for them shattered the horror of the quiet. "Thank you very much for the tea," he says as he jumps up.

"Same time next week?" she is asking at the same time, rising slowly and beginning to walk him to the door.

"Oh, absolutely," he says.

"It's nothing," she smiles at the same moment, and now they are nodding to each other quickly.

They linger at the door, for a moment, but not for very long, because neither one of them wants a repeat of their earlier standstill. Then he walks away, and China Sorrows closes the door quite firmly and then smiles to herself, while Springheel Jack is making his way away as fast as he possibly can.

Considering that he is _Springheel Jack_, this is quite rather fast. The pedestrians are not too happy about this, of course, but then, pedestrians are never too happy about anything, except maybe horrific traffic accidents.

* * *

**A/N: Springheel is so much fun.**

**~Mademise Morte**


	72. Chapter 72

Caelan is staring off into the distance, as is his wont. The evening is cloudy and cool, and he has just finished stabbing a needle into the flesh of his arm. He will not turn into something else when the moon rises – at least, not yet.

"What are you thinking of?" his lover asks, his voice soft.

"I am thinking about running," answers Caelan, not meaning to be distant but managing it quite well, and quietness settles. It is a companionable kind of hush, but a hush all the same.

A few of the passing birds decide that now is a good time to sing, and the two humanoids link hands, smiling in spite of themselves and the mood, because there is something so whimsical and so lighthearted about the animals' song that they can't help but be cheered by it.

The hotel-room is a mess, horribly so, littered with empty syringes and general clutter, some of it identifiable but most of it not. They've managed to keep room service away, but if they were to suddenly vacate it and someone were to come clean, that someone might assume that it was previously inhabited by a drug addict with a sex problem, or possibly a sex addict with a drug problem.

"Where would you like to run to next?" asks the slighter figure with a wide yawn, a gentle stretch and a creaking of joints.

Caelan looks at his lover, and his smile widens into something completely raw and unguarded, hungry and happy and affectionate. "Anywhere," he says lightly, and then they embrace. "Anywhere," he says again, "As long as it is with you."

"Of course," says Fletcher, and now they are done with words. Again settles a hush, and it is very much a companionable silence, but differently so.

* * *

**A/N: Kehe. :D**

**~Mademise Morte.**


	73. Chapter 73

There is a twistedness in her eyes, a desperate kind of fury and a lust and a terrible, terrible kind of injury. Her fingers are curled into a fist, and she is tensed, on the hairline crack of indecision that precedes the choice between fighting and fleeing.

"Calm down," the other says, and her throat is dry and her voice cracks. She tries again, and then with desperation written on her face, she adds the word _please_. She sounds weak, even to herself, and she is suddenly struck by the entirely inappropriate urge to laugh, loudly and at great length.

_You really think I can? _The words are not spoken, but they are communicated all the same, with a quick sideways glance and a sudden derisive curl at the corner of her lips. She speaks now, and her voice is mocking. "It's more than a little late for that, Murder," she says, and now the moment has been broken, the dreamlike quality to the air shattered, because she has invoked the Name and now she is darting away and Murder Rose is helpless to stop her.

With a passive, unemotional gaze, Murder watches as her friend and conquest darts into the water, lithe body twisting and legs kicking, as she goes deep and seems to be lost and seems to drown, for no human, mortal or otherwise, could last that long. Murder doesn't turn away.

With a sound that is strange, a figure bursts out for the water, and it is the same girl and at the same time it isn't, because now she isn't human, not that she was all that human in the first place, and her smile is vindictive. "Thanks for the sentiment, though," she says, and then she disappears again.

Murder laughs now. She has to.

* * *

**A/N: I found out I'd never really written anything about the Sea Hag before she gave up her name, so this happened.**

**~Mademise Morte**


	74. Chapter 74

He bites his lip, reviewing his words before he says them as he has been taught to do to minimize the committing of extremely stupid acts on his part, or speaking provocative words that he will deeply regret. This done, he turns to the beautiful woman with the raven hair and the green sleeves and asks her how much she costs.

He is shortly slapped, with great violence and enthusiasm, though of course none of this shows on the beautiful woman's face, which is as calm and impassive as ever it is. She curses him, and even her voice is lovely, and then she tells him to go away. When he just stands there, staring at her, she repeats this, and when he still fails to move, she gently shoos him away.

"That wasn't very nice," says the mawkish adolescent with the green eyes and the red hair to her best friend.

China laughs with derision. "Eliza," she says gently, "There are many things in this world that are not nice. Rape, for example, and murder and war. There is Necromancy and there are Teleporters and there are psychopaths and schizophrenics and lunatics on a scale that you wouldn't believe. In light of all this, I'd say that gently discouraging a small idiot means very little."

"Still, China. You might make more of an effort." She shrugs, though her attention is already veering away.

"Again, Eliza, I have to question your perspective. Of course, there are people for whom I will make myself fawning and weak and useless, but those are far and few between, and in the grand scale of things, Skulduggery Pleasant is not and never will be one of them."

"Don't you like him even a little bit?"

"Not at all," China answers, smiling. "Why, do you?"

* * *

**A/N: China is a fun teenager to write, though I'm guessing being around would be a completely different matter.**

**~Mademise Morte**


	75. Chapter 75

"Oh, wow. Hey. Wasn't expecting to see you here at all. You look kind of awesome. Hi." Finbar smiles sheepishly, long, thin fingers ruffling through the stubble of his hair, grown out over the past few weeks.

"What happened to Sharon?" asks Solomon, his lips twitching into a smile as he looks at the walls, shoulders tucked back and hands primly clasped.

"Oh. Her." Finbar frowns a little, the creases foreign against his skin. "She left me for some chick with blue hair about a month ago." He shrugs his bony shoulders. "Doesn't matter. It's not that important. What brings a sober little Necromancer here, anyway? Are you going to hurt me again? I don't have a weapon of any kind right now, but if you gave me a moment…" He glances around the studio as if a sledgehammer might spontaneously come into sight.

"This isn't business," says Solomon. "So don't worry."

"Oh, fabulous," says Finbar, and now he is smiling too. "So, what can I do you for?" He blinks and pauses. "Sorry, what can I do for you?"

"Why don't you tell me?" asks Solomon lightly, moving closer, and his voice is low in his throat. Finbar laughs.

* * *

**A/N: Implied Sharon/Clarabelle, yay.**

**~Mademise Morte, March 16, 2013.**


	76. Chapter 76

Her hands are cold, so she shoves them in her pockets. They continue to be cold, but marginally less so.

Her mind is basically empty as she walks along, toes curled up inside her boots. Once or twice the thought that she might hail a taxi and ask to be brought to Gordon's house skids across the shaky, meandering rails that direct her train of thought, but she dismisses it on account of having absolutely no money, and so it is that she keeps walking.

She tries to blinker herself like she is a horse, to censor the things that she is seeing, not because they are ugly or worrying or dangerous, but because they are so sickeningly ridiculous that she can't bring herself to believe them, because they make her feel like she is hallucinating, so she ignores the Cú na Gealaí Duibhe fighting in the alleyways and the elves on the rooftops and the middle-aged woman apparently performing a modern dance interpretation of _Faust_, according to the little sign she's put up with a bowl for coins that contains only air. The woman is wearing a costume that makes her look rather like an oversized peanut.

A lime green car that looks like it might be a Chinese knockoff of something Korean has been following her, she has noticed. Its reflection gleams in various reflective surfaces, and its driver is bundled up heavily, with hat and gloves and a horrific scarf, and what also looks a bit like a wig.

She's thought about running, but that seems like it would be silly, all things considered. She couldn't outrun a car, so she just shivers, shoves her hands a little bit deeper into her pockets, and she continues walking, trying to forget about the horrifically badly painted neon-fluorescent car.

* * *

**A/N: Alison inhabits the same world as Val, in a lot of ways, but she perceives it very differently.**

**~Mademise Morte, March 17, 2013.**


	77. Chapter 77

"Did I keep you waiting long? Terribly sorry about that. I got caught up with the paperwork – you know how it is."

"Actually, I don't, but that's quite all-right – you can sit down. There's no need to stand there hanging your head apologetically."

"I was actually trying to see if my shoelaces were symmetrical, but all-right."

"So, my dear, regale me with tales of this great and powerful foe you now battle known as _paperwork_."

"Wipe that grin off your face, Vex. It is entirely unbecoming."

"I think I shall wait for you to perform that service for me. Might wake you up a bit."

"Might send you into a downwards spiral of shock and horror and awe, too."

"It might, but to be honest, no matter how good a kisser you are, I don't think you could really be that fabulous."

"You have no idea."

"That is very true, I do not. So, my dear, to the point of the matter. _Paperwork_. Why is it pursuing you and how do you expect to slaughter it? Gun? Sword? Flamethrower."

"While I must admit that the last sounds particularly appealing, I'm actually planning to vanquish it by dint of simply completing it. The pen is mightier than the sword and all that."

"Oho."

"I thought I told you to stop grinning."

"This is a new grin, reserved especially for risqué double-entendres.

"Stop it. It is entirely unbecoming also."

"Au contraire, I think it's very becoming indeed. It seems to be flustering you, and that is always a bonus."

"Oh, Vex, I do love you."

"Of course you do, my dear. Everyone does, in the end. I am just that charming."

"I suppose you are."

"You're very charming too, of course."

"How you flatter me."

"But of course, Skul. But of course."

* * *

**A/N: I so love Vex/Pleasant.**

**~Mademise Morte, March 18, 2013.**


	78. Chapter 78

"Did you bring the mail in, darling?"

"Yep. You've got an invite from the Sanctuary for something or other that necessitates cream envelopes and gold lettering."

"Another one?"

"Seems like it. Isn't there , someone you can write to to unsubscribe from these things or something?"

"You'd think there would be. But no, there isn't – I've checked."

"You could try attending one of them, you know."

"What, and have to stand around looking bored while everyone else is having a roaring good time being their pedantic, prosaic selves?"

"Well, yes. You could laugh at them behind their backs, and any room is automatically improved for containing you."

"You are such a flatterer."

"I do try. Really, why not, though?

"Too many people who know me from when I was with Skulduggery. Could you imagine the small talk? They'd be imagining what kind of an absolute and utter screwup I'd have to be for him to refuse to work with me. And I'd be lonely without you."

"And you call me a flatterer."

"You are, Melancholia. I am simply honest."

"Of course. Just out of curiosity, might your refusal to attend these things be in any way related to your refusal to wear a dress of any kind?"

"It's not impossible, but that seems like such a harsh, trivializing way of putting it."

"My Gods, I didn't think that was actually it."

"Oh, shut up. You don't like dresses either."

"Because they remind me of being groomed as the woman who will destroy death and spending my life cooped up in a temple because I was afraid that I would never be good enough at anything else. I have a legitimate excuse. You don't."

"Have I told you lately how much I adore you?"

"That's irrelevant, Valkyrie."

"Honest all the same."

* * *

**A/N: I really enjoy this pairing.**

**~Mademise Morte, March 19, 2013.**


	79. Chapter 79

"Look, I know how absolutely, mind-bogglingly bored you must be right now, but do you absolutely have to look like it is so? You could at least smile and pretend that the world's okay." The tall woman with the imperious eyes and the dark hair and the red dress is sighing, punctuating her speech with quick, staccato hand gestures that occasionally make her look like she's trying to poke someone's eye out.

"Where would the fun in that be?" he asks, frowning into his folded arms. "What point in that is there? What would I tell the calories I put into smiling and putting up a pretense that I'll never believe in?"

"That they were doomed anyway. You don't eat nearly enough, Fletcher, and I can say that as a fact."

"You are so cruel, Alice."

"Oh, I know. And stop calling me Alice, it's really annoying."

"_Alice._"

"Hush, you horrible, horrible person."

"I refuse to on principle," he says, smirking now. The light is hitting his hair quite dramatically, which is probably why he chose this seat, and he looks rather smug.

"Well, I suppose I did get you to smile," she says, and now she is smiling too.

* * *

**A/N: I don't know why I enjoy making fun of Fletcher so much, but I really do.**

**~Mademise Morte, March 20, 2013.**


	80. Chapter 80

The sound of the wind is singing into his ears, and it is strangely comforting. He had never thought, in all his time spent at least semi-conscious, that he would miss something as simple as this, but he does.

In the universe that the Faceless had invaded and picked clean, in the world that they had made their own by force and force only, there hadn't been anything like this. There had been air, of course, and it had moved, but it was never much of a wind. It was dusty and dry and painful against his bones, scraping at their exposed surface with sand and grit, wearing it smooth and raw.

Or else it was being controlled by the dark and twisted Gods that he had never really believed in, and then he despised it even more, because it was horrible and unnatural and did not bode well for his future.

He likes the way Dublin looks at night, the way it hums and it glows like every city does. He has been on islands or at sea often, and it has always been a comfort, the way that large areas of habitation look from afar, so happy and full of life.

There was never anything like that in the space where the Faceless ruled supreme. Even when there were those who still held their free will, they were hunted and they were scared and they were never, ever at peace.

The thing that Skulduggery loves the very best out of all that he has regained by returning to this dimension, though, is his renewed proximity to Ghastly Bespoke. Partially because he makes the best suits that Skulduggery has ever worn, of course, but partially because he is his dearest, most faithful friend, and occasionally his lover as well.

* * *

**A/N: Ghastly/Skulduggery is really such fun.**

**~Mademise Morte, March 21, 2013.**


	81. Chapter 81

Her legs are crossed at the ankles and swinging loosely in the air – the seat that she has perched herself on is a little bit too high for her, though she would never admit that, somehow aware of the fact that it would be rather undignified to acknowledge that, despite being tall, her feet don't reach the floor when chairs that are slightly higher than the norm are involved.

She is eating her ice-cream with a great deal of gusto. It is chocolate in flavor, and it is at exactly the right temperature – warm enough to be beginning to melt, but not entirely souplike in composition yet. She appreciates this a great deal, even though she would far prefer it if it were completely frozen but nevertheless in a cone and to be consumed by walking along. Somehow, it feels a great deal more virtuous that way, possibly because of the company involved. That kind of thing reminds her of Fletcher.

Not that she wants to be thinking of Fletcher right now.

She is smiling at her dining companion, though he is so in name only. He is not eating, simply leaning his chin into his interlocked fingers and staring at her intently. At least, she thinks it's intently, though he might be going for seductive and failing tremendously badly.

"How is it?" he asks at length, his voice soft, pensive.

"Bloody delicious," she answers when she has finished her mouthful. "Want some?" She tilts her bowl towards him, smiling.

The skeleton picks his skull up off his hands and scowls at her with a certain amount of venom and indignation while she laughs. After a few moments, he laughs too, but not before removing her bowl and emptying its remaining contents out into the sink, where they melt forlornly.

* * *

**A/N: Kehe. :)**

**~Mademise Morte, March 22, 2013.**


	82. Chapter 82

Despite its workability, its quick acquiescence to his hands, the rope is strong. Woven of the silk of animals that no longer have names, it is unbreakable, and pretty damn difficult to undo if you do not have a precise knowledge of the knots used. The knots themselves are archaic, their secrets thought to have been long lost to time, and it is only through his exceptional intelligence and special reasoning that he is confident that he will be able to undo them.

There is not a great deal of light, but steadily he works, twining and twisting and turning the rope, molding it into a shape of his own will, and the light doesn't really matter to him, and neither does the passage of time, because genius cannot be rushed, and he knows that he is a genius.

Finally, he has finished with his work, and he steps back to survey it, smiling cryptically and seeing so much more than what is physically there, in his four dimensions.

"Wonderful," he says softly, and his voice settles slowly, gracefully over the small, darkened room.

"Yes," snaps the other. "Absolutely freakin' _fabulous_. Now, when exactly are you planning to untie me?"

* * *

**A/N: Dusk/Sanguine makes me very happy.**

**~Mademise Morte, March 23, 2013.**


	83. Chapter 83

Being so near to you all the time is torture, and that's not just because of your personality.

It's holding the flame in my hand and not feeling it burn. It's gripping the knife and pressing it close and still staying calm. It's looking into the abyss and daring myself to jump.

Because you are a flame, ravaging and hurting and heartless, and you are a knife, cutting and cruel and deliberate, and you are an abyss. You always have been, and I don't know why I ever thought to think you anything but.

Skulduggery Pleasant, you are a monster, and I've known that from the moment we met. You are a stone thrown into the peace of a pond, exuding ripples and unrest everywhere you go, and you are the thing that has broken my bones time and time again. I sensed it on you that first day when my uncle lay dead, at the funeral, when I was still normal, when I still had the chance to escape you. Sometimes I wish I had.

The dreams come for me at night. You know that. You've brushed them away from my skin along with the sweat and you've sung for me as if that could keep them at bay, and you've implied sympathy like all those other things you've implied and life would have been so much easier if your sins had only been those of omission.

They aren't, though, so you are printed on the insides of my eyelids in all your worst moments. My sleep isn't really sleep, because I am watching you as you truly are: flame, knife, abyss.

I should leave you. I still have time. I should be able to escape you and your concentric rings of disturbance.

Somehow, I can't bring myself to.

* * *

**A/N: I don't actually mind Val/Skul. I just don't think it's necessarily _cute_.**

**~Mademise Morte, March 24, 2013.**


	84. Chapter 84

Written 2013 - April - 27.

* * *

If she were older, they might be lovers. She might use her warmth like the weapon it is, let the shadows of the world curl over and caress his skin, and he might take whatever he could get of her from her. They might spend hours together in the dark with her nails and teeth and every sharpness upon his flesh, and he would be yielding. She might become his sin, his pleasure, his sated craving. Might even be his secret.

As it is, though, she is not older, as much as he might bemoan that fact, and so instead he is her teacher. He guides her through his world of darkness, watches as she soaks it all in, eagerness shallowly hidden by her veneer of nonchalance, her pretense of having seen it all, and sometimes he just wants to show her all there is of the universe, wants to lay it out for her, split bare and open, just as he would be if she ever thought to ask.

If she were older, Valkyrie Cain might fall in love with Solomon Wreath. She isn't and so she won't, but all the same, he is madly in love with her.


	85. Chapter 85

Written 01 - May - 2013.

* * *

Sometimes she wants to forget, and she knows how horrible that is, but she can't help it. There are days when he's there, fresh in her mind like some kind of wound, like the portal that had opened up and swallowed him whole had never quite closed, and there are days when he's just an ache heavy on her shoulders, but there are never days when she can quite put him out of her mind, because he is everywhere.

He is there in the sound of the wind and he is there in the grain of the books stacked on her bookshelves, and he is there in her mirror, and he is there, so completely vivid, every time she closes her eyes. He is there in the rain and the sun and the salt of the sea and the feeling of fire. He is there in every face she stares down, every door she breaks, every time she hears her name, and sometimes she thinks that something inside her has become trapped with him in that Other place.

Other times she wonders if she really is imagining it all, because he is _everywhere_, and surely that has to mean something.


End file.
